# Plugin or other option to require a post and a like?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-or-other-option-to-require-a-post-and-a-like/397978
**Category:** General
**Created:** [March 9, 2026, 5:38pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-or-other-option-to-require-a-post-and-a-like/397978 "2026-03-09T17:38:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 2

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### Author: ![awesomerobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/awesomerobot/32/142900_2.png) [@awesomerobot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/awesomerobot)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2026, 5:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-or-other-option-to-require-a-post-and-a-like/397978/2 "2026-03-09T17:53:22Z")

</div>

Accepting the guidelines can be accomplished using the policy plugin: [Discourse Policy](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-policy/88557)

You’d add an “I accept these guidelines” policy at the bottom of the relevant guidelines topic, and when the policy is accepted it can add users to a group you create, for example: `accepted_guidelines`

You can then set up categories so that only members of the `accepted_guidelines` group can post there.

Making an introduction post is a little trickier… I don’t think we have a way to control group membership based on where someone’s posted. One workaround I can think of is using [Discourse Automation](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-automation/195773).

We have a script there called `User Group Membership through Badge` — you could require people to include an emoji in their introduction post… which would then award the “first emoji” badge and have the automation add them to a `posted_introduction` group.

It’s a little more advanced, but you could create a special badge for posting an introduction, and then set up the automation to use that for group membership. Some more info here: [Creating triggered custom badge queries](https://meta.discourse.org/t/creating-triggered-custom-badge-queries/19336)

A badge query for a post in a specific topic would look something like this:

```sql
SELECT p.user_id, min(p.created_at) granted_at, MIN(p.id) post_id
FROM badge_posts p
WHERE p.topic_id = TOPIC-ID-HERE
AND (:backfill OR p.id IN (:post_ids))
GROUP BY p.user_id

```

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-or-other-option-to-require-a-post-and-a-like/397978)._